Sulla reorganized the state--not, however, as the master of the house who puts his shattered estate and household in order according to his own discretion, but as the temporary business-manager who faithfully complies with his instructions; it is superficial and false in such a case to devolve the final and essential responsibility from the master upon the manager.

We estimate the importance of Sulla much too highly, or rather we dispose of those terrible proscriptions, ejections, and restorations--for which there never could be and never was any reparation--on far too easy terms, when we regard them as the work of a bloodthirsty tyrant whom accident had placed at the head of the state.

These and the terrorism of the restoration were the deeds of the aristocracy, and Sulla was nothing more in the matter than, to use the poet's expression, the executioner's axe following the conscious thought as its unconscious instrument.

Sulla carried out that part with rare, in fact superhuman, perfection; but within the limits which it laid down for him, his working was not only grand but even useful.

Never has any aristocracy deeply decayed and decaying still farther from day to day, such as was the Roman aristocracy of that time, found a guardian so willing and able as Sulla to wield for it the sword of the general and the pen of the legislator without any regard to the gain of power for himself.
There is no doubt a difference between the case of an officer who refuses the sceptre from public spirit and that of one who throws it away from a cloyed appetite; but, so far as concerns the total absence of political selfishness--although, it is true, in this one respect only--Sulla deserves to be named side by side with Washington.
Value of the Sullan Constitution But the whole country--and not the aristocracy merely--was more indebted to him than posterity was willing to confess.